as soon as there is an element of touch, the distinction between who is caressing and who is being caressed becomes vague. Moreover, in sexual excitement your body and the other person's body take on a central role. You become flesh (in the immanent sense of the word), and at the same time you want to experience yourself as an autonomous, free subject. You recognize the same in the other person, and you realize the other person sees you as flesh and subjectivity as well. In sexuality therefore, we experience the body-mind distinction and the intersubjective distinction as blurry, confused and porous.
An important difference between Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty, is that the latter made the mistake of thinking sexuality is neutral – that gender does not play a part. Beauvoir argues that we are always gendered embodied subjects, and that sexuality is therefore also gendered. There are two important works by Beauvoir when it comes to sexuality: ‘Must We Burn Sade?’ and The Second Sex. The first gives us an example of masculine desire in patriarchy, and the second shows how feminine sexuality is influenced by patriarchal codes and categories. Masculine sexuality is characterized by subjectivity, activity and transcendence; feminine sexuality by objectivity,
passivity and immanence. As we can see, patriarchy denies the ambiguity of sexuality. We push one gender into the domain of transcendence and keep the other enclosed in immanence. Why have we done this? Simply because we do not like that we are also immanent flesh, that we can exist for others. We try to deny this essential part of the human condition, argues Beauvoir.
In The Second Sex we see that there are four elements that define feminine sexuality: shame, objectification, passivity, and inhibition. First of all, women are taught to hide and suppress their sexual desires. Secondly, Beauvoir states that in sexuality the feeling of being judged by the male gaze becomes strongest; objectification turns into self-objectification and creates a strong sense of bodily self-consciousness during sexual activity. On top of that comes a lack of autonomy. Women are put into the reactive position (when it comes to dating, sex and marriage) to complement men's active role. Finally, we saw that inhibition is part of feminine sexuality. Not being able to “let go”
prevents pleasure. Beauvoir states that this stems from a subject-object conflict: as human beings we want to be subjects, but for sexual pleasure we need to be able to give in to our flesh. We need to be able to acknowledge our immanence, whilst still being able to experience ourselves as subject. In other words: we need an experience of ambiguity. For women it is extremely difficult to give in to the flesh, because when they do, they do not position themselves as subject: when they give in to their flesh, the man can take up the role of the subject, because within the sexual script that we follow, women's pleasure is “accomplished” by the man. Women's pleasure revolves around male subjectivity. This forces women into a world of immanence: even her pleasure revolves around his subjectivity. When one person is absolute transcendence, the other can never escape their own
otherness.
We now have a sociological description of feminine sexuality, but mind you: this is a description of feminine sexuality during the time that Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, which was mid-twentieth century. Of course, a lot has changed in those seventy years. Many women and men have broken free from conservative ideas on sexuality. But we have also seen that it is in many ways still a shockingly accurate description of our current ideas on sexuality, although it has
evolved into more modern versions. Now that we have this sociological description, we will see that immanence is also a characteristic of feminine embodiment in sexual situations. I have focused on three aspects of feminine sexuality: spectatoring, becoming prey, and putting on a show. When someone is spectatoring, they take up a third-person perspective on their own bodies. Women for example, make sure that they look as thin as possible. Or they make sure that they are in a position in which their stomach is as flat as possible, because they imagine that it would disgust the other person if they would touch a stomach roll. In these situations, they do not experience their body as an actor, but as an observer. Instead of experiencing how the body feels from the inside, the focus goes to how the body looks on the outside. A second characteristic is “becoming prey”. In sexuality, women have a stronger experience of being touched than of touching, because this is emphasized in the sexual gender scripts that are active in our society. On top of that, they are not encouraged to take initiative. Their activity mostly refers back to themselves: they can make sure they look as visually attractive as possible, and they can give certain signs to the man that they are interested, giving him the possibility to take initiative. Then finally, we saw that women tend to make their sexuality a “performance”. This final aspect is very reactionary. Women's sexual script prescribes that they should show their sexual responsiveness to the men's skill. It turns their sexuality in a more “noisy performance”, and I state that the way they show this is influenced by the male gaze, which means an element of spectatoring is also part of this. What we see in all these three aspects, is that it revolves around male pleasure.
What does this mean? First of all, the woman is not in her body, she is outside looking onto her own body. She is cut off from being inner-aware. This results in an outwardly-experienced sexual schema. Her sexual schema is related to specific areas like the belly or the breasts, and less to erogenous zones. And her sexual schema is less related to her sexual abilities, and more to seducing and to his sexual abilities and showing a fitting way to respond to it. Seducing and erotic responsiveness again incorporate an outward look.
Moreover, her intentional acts in sexuality are constantly self-referred: she positions her body in the best looking way, and then waits for the man to come towards her. In other words: her active range is limited to herself, giving her a disconnected unity with the world and experiencing
herself as rooted in place instead of free to move towards the other person.
Now that we have seen that women in patriarchy have an alienated bodily existence, we need to make sure that we do not make the same mistake as many other phenomenologists have done. Beauvoir showed us that women are pushed into immanence, so that men can be fully transcendent. This means that masculine bodily existence is not neutral. The descriptions of
Merleau-Ponty are not neutral; they are masculine. We need to be aware that we do not tell women to be more like men; we should not state that feminine bodily existence should be the same as masculine existence. This does not mean that masculinity and femininity are per se different, or that there cannot be a neutral phenomenology: it means that phenomenology as we know it is not
neutral. And also that as much as feminine sexuality is influenced by patriarchy, so is masculine sexuality. So what does this mean for us? It means that we should not switch the male and female position in sexuality. We should not tell women to be more active towards men in sexuality, or to experience themselves as transcendent subjects in sexual settings, or that instead of focusing on their own breasts they should objectify the male body. This would only invert the problem. We could even state that this focus on subjectivity is what caused the problem. I argue that we need to focus more on ambiguity. Because not only is the woman denied entry to a similar “masculine”
experience during sexuality, she is also cut off from her own feminine experience of sexual pleasure. I suggest that the female orgasm is an ambiguous experience, and because of women's position in patriarchy, they are not able to enter into this ambiguous experience.
We have also seen that Merleau-Ponty still saw ambiguity as an continuous oscillation between immanence and transcendence. I argue that there is a third way of experiencing the body that is a truer articulation of ambiguity. I call this “middle mode”, and it in a way transcends immanence and transcendence and turns it into something new. One variety of this bodily experience can be found in the orgasm.
Middle mode can be seen as “riding the waves” of the body; as surrendering, and at the same time taking control. There are involuntary movements of the body that we cannot control, they might hurt or they might be pleasurable, but either way, they happen to us. Imagine being in an uncomfortable position in a yoga class. You can struggle against the pain – this often comes with tensing up the body, maybe stopping your breath: ways of pushing against it. But you can also breathe, relax your muscles, and you will feel that the pain does not go away, but becomes more bearable. You have found a way to respond with your body to involuntary things that happen inside your body. Now imagine something pleasurable, let's say: sexual pleasure leading to an orgasm.
Forcing the orgasm to come, for example by putting all your attention to the feeling of the clitoris, often does not help very much. What can help, is breathing, relaxing the body, simply enjoying the
feeling without putting pressure on having an orgasm. It is a form of surrender, and at the same time a feeling of controlling the body. It is an active surrender.
Important in the notion of middle mode is that the body is experienced as a whole and not as two separate parts in which one part is active and another part of the body is passive. When we look at the female orgasm, Fahs detected an experience of the body that she called transformative
embodiment. This is described as “losing control” of the body but also being fully present in the body. Trembling of the body, legs that are shaking, or shocks going through the body is often a part of it. And on top of that, it was not localized in a specific part of the body, but in the body as a whole. Transformative embodiment gave women a sense of agency over their bodies, of understanding how their body responds best to sexual pleasure. I argue that this experience of transformative embodiment during orgasm is the experience of middle mode.
Now let us compare the way women experience their sexual bodies in a patriarchy with transformative embodiment, or: the body in middle mode. Women experience their bodies often from a third-person perspective. She is not present in her body – as we need for middle mode –, her body is outwardly-experienced. Her sexual schema is very localized – she is mostly focusing on her stomach, thighs, breasts, et cetera –, which creates a division within the own body as opposed to a whole body experience. Women take on a passive role in sexuality: they are being touched, looked at, and they are responsive instead of active. She has a strong sense of bodily self-reference,
meaning her active range is limited to changing her own body. Often, the way she holds and moves her body, is guided by the male gaze and male pleasure. She is not in control of the sexual act, and therefore a feeling of being in control over your own body becomes complicated.
As Beauvoir states, by denying the ambiguity of the human condition, men have enclosed their own sexuality in the domain of transcendence, forcing women into immanence. We have seen how this happens both on a cultural level and in the domain of embodiment. This way, both sexes are denied access to the experience of middle mode, which is an important orgasmic experience for women.
So is there a solution? I think we need to be made aware of these patriarchal patterns before we can dismantle them. This phenomenological analysis of feminine embodiment during sexuality is a first step in understanding the workings of the body. And I hope that by understanding how we experience our body, women can change that experience. Of course, we still have to deal with the masculine role that enables the feminine role. An essential step is dismantling the strict separation we have between femininity and masculinity, and therefore also between the two gendered scripts and the two gendered forms of embodiment. If we want to make more room for ambiguity, we need to be able to play with these roles. We need to be more fluid in our sexuality, in “masculine” and
“feminine” sexual roles, and the way we relate to the other person. Sexuality is a field of possibilities, and we all relate in some way to that field. But social scripts force us in a rigid position, unable to play with these possibilities and unable to experience different modes. When men and women are able to play with these roles, ambiguity might be possible for all sexes.
DISCUSSION
This thesis gave a limited phenomenological view on feminine sexuality. It mainly studied aspects that are in some way related to difficulties reaching orgasm; or when discussing positive
experiences, it was again limited to the orgasm. We have stated before that sexuality entails much more than penile thrusting or clitoral stimulation: breasts are an important erogenous zone, touching skin anywhere on the body can be erotic, pulling hair or scratching can all be part of sexuality.
Further research should be done on sexual behavior that is not related to orgasm, and on sexual behavior that is not related to sexual organs. Of course, an important element that has not been discussed is the role of sexual harassment or sexual violence in the way women experience their bodies and their sexuality. We have discussed sexual objectification and how women incorporate the male gaze by being objectified on a daily basis, but the hostility and fear that women might
associate with sexuality because of street harassment or sexual violence, should be discussed more elaborately. On top of that, we have focused on white, cisgender women. A next step in
investigating feminine sexuality should include other cultural or racial influences on sexuality.
Moreover, considering the orgasm gap is mainly a problem of heterosexual partnered sex, it would be very interesting to verify the hypothesis of this thesis by using literature on queer embodiment in sexual settings (a lot of literature has been written about this topic, for example Sara Ahmed's book Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, the essay ‘Heteronormativity made me lesbian: Femme, butch and the production of sexual embodiment projects’ by Sara L Crawley and Rebecca K Willman and the essay ‘The ethics of shared embodiment in queer, feminist and lesbian pornography’ by Ingrid Ryberg). If the hypothesis of this thesis is correct, one would expect that one of the reasons that women have more orgasms during lesbian sex, is because queer women or non-binary people take a step outside the forced patriarchal gender roles of heterosexual sex. They can play with the fluidity of “masculine” and “feminine” roles, because neither of them is forced into one of those roles. On top of that, queer sex does not have the presence of the male gaze, which could be another reason why queer women have more orgasms.
One of the criticisms one could have on studying the orgasm gap, is that it gives power to the idea that orgasm is the most important element of sexuality. This is called the “orgasmic imperative”: the heteronormative idea that having orgasms is part of a healthy sexual life and that
the absence of orgasms is abnormal (Frith, 2013: p. 495). This can make women that have
difficulties reaching orgasm feel like they are failing, that their sexuality is not good enough, or that something is wrong with them (Fahs, 2014: p. 976). On top of that, men can feel inadequate when the women does not have a climax, because our sexual scripts tell us that men should “make a woman come”. Multiple things happen here: first of all, when this does not succeed, men can feel like a failure, they can feel angry that the woman does not have an orgasm, and at the same time they can blame the “fickle” and “mysterious” female body. When a woman does have an orgasm, it is of course all of a sudden all thanks to the man's “hard work” (Ibid.: p. 976). This can lead to a woman faking an orgasm to reassure the man, turning her sexuality into emotional labor (as she is often used to do in a heterosexual relationship) (Jackson & Scott, 2007: p. 106). Moreover, the orgasmic imperative reduces sexuality to biological functions and sexual pleasure to orgasm (Frith, 2013: p. 499).
I think it is therefore essential to do further research on sexuality outside of the orgasmic paradigm. But we should not forget the facts, which is that women can have as many orgasms as men, but that they do not have them as much as soon as the are intimate with a man. Stating that we should not equal pleasure with orgasm – although it is of course very true –, could lead to accepting this clearly sexist problem of our patriarchal sexuality for what it is. It could give an impulse to the sexist idea that women's sexuality simple does not come with orgasm, or at least, that it is not a natural or evident part of it.
What if we shift our focus from the absence or presence of the female orgasm, to the ever-present male orgasm? What if we find ways to make our sexuality not revolve around the male orgasm? What if we normalize men not having an orgasm? It might give us an opening for being more fluid and playful with our sexuality. And maybe, by doing this, women will have more orgasms. But if not, we will all definitely find pleasure in this playfulness. In the end, sexuality is not about orgasms, the clitoris or the penis: it is about finding pleasure in all sorts of forms, and pleasure should not be limited to one gender.